Back at the beginning of my screenwriting career, Aaron Spelling fell in love with a script that my wife and I had written, "Labor of Love," and damn near made it. A few nights ago when this story broke, on our wedding anniversary, we started to reminisce about our close encounters with this famous Hollywood producer and talked about him most of the way home.
There is an excellent article about Spelling's career in the Los Angeles Times, written by Brian Lowry who now works for Daily Variety. No reason to repeat the public obituary about all the shows and stars. But I will tell you about our little slice of his life because we still remember the time vividly to this day.
"Labor of Love" was the first feature I ever wrote. I was represented by CAA at the time and they let it sit with Goldie Hawn's company for nearly six months. Then they let Maxine Goldenson (daughter of ABC's famous Leonard Goldenson) take a look at it. She gave it to Aaron. He flipped for it, sent it to Universal for the weekend read, and by Monday we had our first major studio option.
The script is about a sperm bank and a whacky pregnancy and was written when Jackie was pregnant with our first child. I think Aaron thought I was okay, but he really thought Jackie was wonderful. He was very kind and charming to her. In fact, we were sufficiently inspired by this sale -- and I know this will sound very Hollywood -- that we named our first son Jonathan Aaron Zabel. This was not so much a tribute to Aaron Spelling as much as we were looking for a name that started with an "A" so that our son could be JAZ and when Aaron bought the script, we took that as a sign. I know, I know... but that's how it hit us then.
We had meetings in Aaron's legendarily huge office where we were served drinks by an African-American man in a white butler's uniform. Before you say anything, though, Aaron was also recognized four times by the NAACP for his efforts at diversity on TV. Granted, though, it was a little surreal.
Anyway, our first draft of "Labor of Love" was put into pre-production, offices were rented and a director was hired. Then the WGA went on strike and while we were walking the picket lines the project got put in turnaround by Universal and died.
While all this was happening, Jackie and I also got a deal to write a Charlie's Angel's pilot for Fox Television, "Angels." We even had an office in a Hollywood bungalow with a fireplace. We were told that Howard Hughes had actually had this office for a period of time.
"Angels" never got made either. Our Angels, in any case, were probably closer to the Angels in the later feature films than to the Angels from Aaron's first series.
I remember a lot of small details, too. For example, I recall that Aaron did not like the prevailing moody lighting of shows like "Hill Street Blues." He felt TV shows should be well-lit because people tended to stop on well-lit shows while they were channel surfing. I'll never forget his pipe. He actually smoked it in front of us. He also seemed to wear a brand new track suit in almost every meeting we took with him. And he always asked us how Jonathan was doing.
We were in a story meeting with him once where he explained to everyone in the room about these wonderful new machines where you could use credit cards to get cash -- suggesting we might want to incorporate one in a script. Right, ATMs, we all thought. But when you're Aaron Spelling, you probably don't hit the ATMs that often. He was such a powerful producer, though, that everyone in the room just said it was a great idea, and we put it in the script.
Eventually our first look deal expired, we left CAA, and vacated that wonderful old office with the ghost of Howard Hughes, and life went on.
He may not have been the hippest guy on the block, but he was certainly one of the most successful. As histories of television are written, he will always be mentioned. And we will always remember him for championing our script.
Ironically, Jackie and I have just finished taking "Labor of Love" (which we now have the full rights to) and giving it a full-on re-write from top to bottom. We've re-named it "Complicated" which would probably give Aaron a fit because he was anything but.
As for Jonathan Aaron Zabel, it was his birthday yesterday.
